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Mutton, Ragout Of, Cold

A cold ragout made from mutton cutlets simmered with onion, carrot, turnip, butter, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton, Ragout Of, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Divide the meat into cutlets.

  2. Trim away some fat from the cutlets.

Make the ragout

  1. Heat the butter or fat in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the meat quickly on both sides.

  3. Remove the meat from the pan.

  4. Add the onion to the pan and fry until lightly browned.

  5. Sprinkle in the flour and cook until it is well browned.

  6. Add the stock or water and bring the mixture to a boil.

  7. Season to taste.

  8. Add the diced carrot and turnip.

  9. Return the meat to the pan.

  10. Cover the pan closely and cook gently for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets on a hot dish.

  2. Strain the sauce over the cutlets.

  3. Garnish with boiled vegetable dice.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main body of the dish, and slow cooking in liquid makes it tender.
Flour
Browned with the fat, it thickens the stock into a richer, slightly nutty sauce.
Onion
Softened and browned in the fat, it adds sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Butter or fat
Carries the heat for frying and gives the meat and vegetables browning and flavour.
Carrot and turnip
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they simmer with the meat.

The step that matters

Cook the flour until well browned. Flour must be cooked in the hot fat until it darkens, or the sauce will taste raw and pasty. Adding liquid too early leaves lumps and a floury flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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